W.S. Kelly General Merchandise Age-value monument Rain Man Caddo County Coger Oklahoma

W.S. Kelly General Merchandise – Americana Collection

The W.S. Kelly General Merchandise building stands at the intersection of Oklahoma 37 and Oklahoma 152 as an Age-value monument to the America of the 1950s. Age-value in a monument betrays itself at once in the monument’s dated appearance and makes explicit a sense of the life cycle of the artifact, and of culture as a whole.1 This oxidized metal and faded paint became a ground for scenes in the 1988 cross country road trip movie Rain Man. Three subsequent decades of brutal midwest plains weather have enhanced saturation of the site’s representative rusty patina.


camera: Nikon D3 | lens: AF Nikkor VR Zoom 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED
focal length: 20mm | exposure: f/11 – 1/1000th second – ISO 500


1reference: http://www.eraarch.ca/2011/alois-riegl-and-the-modern-cult-of-the-monument/